Watch as hundreds in Texas testify on the bathroom bill

 

For the third time this year, a committee of state lawmakers will consider measures to restrict bathroom use for transgender residents in what’s expected to be an hours-long hearing Friday that could draw out hundreds of Texans to testify.

On the Senate State Affairs Committee’s agenda are Senate Bill 3 and Senate Bill 91 — both of which would restrict bathroom use in government buildings and public schools based on the sex listed on a person’s birth certificate. Such restrictions would keep most transgender men, women and children from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.

The proposals — both authored by Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham — would also gut parts of local nondiscrimination ordinances meant to allow transgender residents to use public bathrooms of their choice. Similar proposals have been filed in the House but their fates remain uncertain.

It’s unclear how long the hearing will go, but the outcome is easy to predict. The committee, made up mostly of Republicans, is expected to quickly vote out the measure and send it to the full Senate. The chamber has been working at a breakneck pace to zip through the 20-item agenda for the special session, which started Tuesday and could last as long as 30 days.

This is the Senate committee’s second go-around on the issue after similar measures fizzled out in the regular legislative session, which concluded in May, because of House Speaker Joe Straushostility to the legislation. 

In March, the committee considered a similar measure during an emotional, overnight hearing that saw more than 400 people — many of them transgender Texans and their family — sign up to testify. The committee voted to advance that proposal the morning after on a party-line vote. A panel of House lawmakers held its own marathon hearing on a similar measure that died in committee.

The bathroom restrictions have been a top priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, as part of a legislative crusade that’s been years in the making. In pushing for the legislation, Patrick and other proponents have cited concerns about privacy and misuse of trans-inclusive policies by sexual predators. But they’ve provided virtually no evidence of such cases.

All the while, the campaign for bathroom restrictions has pushed Texas into the national spotlight as proposals have garnered fierce opposition from a bevy of LGBT advocates, school district superintendents, teacher associations, county and city officials across the state, major corporations, business groups, and tourism officials. Opponents have decried the proposals as discriminatory and hurtful toward transgender Texans — who must already navigate a complicated landscape to use public restrooms  — and bad for the state’s business interests.

 

 

 

 

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